Dehumanization In Brave New World

Brave New World In the novel Brave New World published in 1932, author Aldous Huxley envisions a dystopian society set far into the future. With technology used to control society and citizens being dehumanized by their own government, the world created by Huxley is an undesirable future that most would find frightening and horrible. This extraordinary novel takes many of the negative aspects of today 's society and exaggerates them, making them into the universe of Brave New World. The characters of Brave New World created by Aldous Huxley have a variety of personalities. Bernard Marx is the primary character of the story up until the visit to the Reservation "whose physique was hardly better than that of a Gamma"... who was

632 in a society ruled by the World State. The Hatching and Conditioning Centre is the first setting of the novel. The Director of the Hatchery is giving a tour to a group of boys to show how children are made and conditioned to what castes they will be a part of and their roles in society as adults. Bernard Marx and Lenina Crowne are introduced as workers at the Hatchery. Bernard has feelings for Lenina and asks her to accompany him on a trip to the Savage Reservation in New Mexico. Bernard feels as though he doesn 't belong in his caste and dislikes the World State. Because of his "heretical" views the Director threatens to exile Bernard to Iceland. Bernard and Lenina travel to New Mexico to the Savage Reservation where they meet John, an outcast on the Reservation whom Bernard learns is the Director 's son. He decides to bring John back to London to use to humiliate the Director. Meanwhile, John becomes attracted to Lenina. After exposing the Director, Bernard becomes popular for being John 's guardian. He later embarrasses himself by not attending his own party and falls back down the social ladder. After John eventually rejects Lenina, his mother dies in the Hospital of the Dying and he starts a riot over people taking the drug, soma. John, Bernard, and Helmholtz are taken to see Mustapha Mond, a leader of the World State, and Bernard and Helmholtz are exiled. John moves to an abandoned lighthouse and goes into

For example, the phrase "a gramme is better than a damn" is recited by citizens of the World State which signifies the expansion of happiness (Huxley 54). One of the goals of the World State is to get rid of all negative emotions and feelings. They do this by giving citizens a gramme of the drug, soma, which puts people into a sort of state of unconsciousness. This blinds people from the truth and turns them into slaves who do not realize that they are really suffering, which is what Huxley tries to point out. The World State has also stunted scientific progress believing it will interfere with people 's happiness which is revealed when Mustapha states that "it isn 't only art that 's incompatible with happiness; it 's also science. Science is dangerous; we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled" (Huxley 231). Mustapha believes that although science is good for progress, it can often reveal facts that are not helpful to one 's happiness. By but restraints on science, Mustapha believes that he is ensuring the happiness of everyone when in fact they are not making room for progress and change. Progress and change are seen as threats to the this totalitarian society and can show people the truth about how bad things really are. Instead they decide to ignore it and choose to stay happy, but